1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to toothpaste dispensers, and, more particularly to a device especially adapted to fit inside of a toothpaste tube that contains toothpaste and for dispensing the toothpaste from the flexible tube by manually squeezing the tube.
2. Prior Art
With the advent of collapsible toothpaste tubes as a method of dispensing toothpaste, people have searched for improved methods of squeezing paste from the tube.
Toothpaste is most commonly packaged in soft tubes, and toothpaste is commonly dispensed from a soft tube by a person manually squeezing the tube. Manual squeezing, however, is often inefficient. The middle of the tube is often squeezed, and a large, quantity of toothpaste may be squeezed away from the exit port of the soft tube rather than towards it. Therefore, there is always a quantity of toothpaste that is not squeezed out of the tube and therefore wasted no matter how the tube is squeezed or manipulated by the user. Also, when a tube is squeezed and resqueezed numerous times, the material comprising the tube often fatigues and may crack or rupture, thereby permitting toothpaste to be squeezed out from the cracks or ruptures.
Other products, other than toothpaste are sold in similar collapsible tubes. The users of these products have become aware that dispensing the product presents the same or similar problems as those presented by toothpaste tubes.
To overcome some of these problems associated with manually squeezing soft tubes to dispense toothpaste, inventors have developed a number of innovations relating to devices for squeezing the soft toothpaste tubes to dispense toothpaste.
A wide variety of both manually operable and powered devices for dispensing toothpaste and other substances from a collapsible tube are well known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,975,362 describes a pinch roller assembly that receives the toothpaste tube in a partially collapsed condition, and moves along the toothpaste tube and collapses a further portion thereof so as to pressurize the toothpaste therein and dispense the toothpaste out through the nozzle end U.S. Pat. No. 1,839,542 has a housing for receiving a tube of toothpaste and a key for rolling the tube of toothpaste to dispense toothpaste from the tube. U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,813 describes a motorized toothpaste dispenser that utilizes a sliding horizontal cylindrical wedge that presses a toothpaste tube against a fixed vertical planer wedge. The cylindrica wedge is moved by a line and pully system driven by a motor and spur gearing.
However, all of the known tooth paste dispensing devises utilize mechanisms for pinching or squeezing the toothpaste tube to collapse it, which mechanisms are observed to be too complex and/or too expensive to manufacture for widespread marketability. Furthermore, these devises all approach the problem by directing the pinching or squeezing mechanismisms to the outside of the tube.